On October 19, 1987 a.k.a Black Monday, the stock market had its worst crash in American history. The new black comedy series from Showtime, Black Monday, follows the true-ish story of the events over the course of the year that led up to the crash. It started when a group of outsiders at a second-tier trading firm took on the system of the old-school boy's club that was Wall Street in the 80's. I spoke to Melissa Bruning, the costume designer on the series, on how she made the style of the 80's, Wall Street, and these outsiders come to life.
Bruning said she started simply with photographs of the trading floor on Black Monday, to get a sense of what people wore, and then expanded out to the people of New York City in daily life. "The great thing about historical events is that people take a lot of pictures, even in the 80's" Bruning said. "So I was able to go through and break down, not just the traders and the buyers and the runners, but also the people on the street who were just staring in the windows."
Focusing in on the specific groups of people in the show, Bruning said it was easiest to start with the old school portion of Wall Street, represented by the Lehman brothers (both brothers are played by Ken Marino) in the show. "It's a blue suit of some sort, sometimes a pinstripe, sometimes a pattern, a white shirt, a red tie,"said Bruning of the classic Wall Street Brooks Brothers-style uniform. This led to the style of our outsiders, the Jammer Group, to stand out even more, as they subvert the idea of what a bunch of Wall Street brokers are supposed to look like. Led by Maurice "Mo" Monroe (Don Cheadle of Marvel fame), the Jammer group is composed of wacky individuals, who are more diverse than your typical Wall Street trading firm. People of color, of different religions, and even a woman - Regina Hall playing Dawn as the firm's kick-ass top trader - make up the Jammer Group as they try to break into the upper white male-dominated ranks of Wall Street.
"They're pretty generic," said Bruning of the typical Wall Street clothes. "For this show, it actually worked in our favor, because then the people who are in Mo's office and Mo himself were able to be sort of less of that, cause they didn't have the Brooks Brothers, but they had pieces of it ... they're a little more ragtag, so I could mix it up with sweaters and, you know, shirts with a stripe or non-matching ties or, you know, a sports coat and slacks. And for Regina, she's still kind of a player, but there was so much more color in the 80's in men's and women's clothes, which works well for a comedy."
Mo, the series' protagonist, grew up in an orphanage with nothing, but built himself up and started the Jammer Group. Bruning described how his outfits embody his journey from the street to Wall Street. "I had a lot of talks with Don Cheadle," Bruning said about how she started the process. "And he, specifically, needed a departure from the character he'd been playing on House of Lies, who was also a suit, and also a fast talker. So, we had to really come up with things that made him feel different ... So, we made his suits a little shiny, and he still wore a suit, but he had a little bit more flavor to it, he had more color to it, he likes to wear gold chains, and then, I think the most important part, especially for Don, was that he wore sneakers ... His character was able to have a different stance, and he wasn't a dress shoe type, he was a street type ... So, anything that we could do to sort of - we knew what the mold was, and then we wanted to take it a step in a more flashy, more interesting direction."
As for Dawn, the only woman in the room, but also the big shot in the office - everyone knows she's the best - Bruning said they tried to make clothes that were both sexy and smart, "clothes that made her feel like she was powerful." This included shapely 80's skirt suits, and piled on jewelry. "We would often be like, 'You know, let's add another bracelet, let's go for more gold, let's just amp it up just a little bit more, cause she's wearing her status also, and she wants everybody to know that," said Bruning. There are only three episodes out at the moment, but Bruning let slip that Dawn has a lot more ball and evening gowns to wear in the later episodes, including one of Bruning's favorite outfits of the season. "And then we also had to make four of [that dress], because stuff happens that I can't reveal, and in a comedy stuff always happens."
Of the character whose clothes changed the most in style over the course of the season, Bruning said it was definitely Blaire (Andrew Rannells). Blaire's character is new to the world of Wall Street, and new to the Jammer Group, and he's pretty dorky, but he wants to make it big in the industry, and Mo has long-term plans for him. Bruning said as Blaire starts to work his way through the ranks, his clothes also change dramatically. "We went from sort of baggy suits that were a little unfitted, you know, not top-notch, to YVES Saint Laurent and Christian Lacroix, and just really giving him that extra fine-tune."
Tiff Georgina (Casey Wilson), Blaire's fiancé, and also heir to the Georgina's Jeans company that is so integral to the cause of the crash, always wears some sort of denim. "Of course she's going to be attracted to jeans, because that is her family's money, and it was very much of the time," said Bruning. "And it's great because we're able to make her go from a casual jean look to, there's a scene at an upcoming thing, a charity ball, in which she wears a denim and gold Lamé cocktail dress that we made."
Black Monday is actually Bruning's first television show. Bruning started costuming in theater and opera, and lately has done multiple films, including Rampage (2018), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), and Wild (2014). "It really put me on my toes," said Bruning of the switch to TV. "I'm used to designing a lot of stuff and having a lot of background, but I was unused to the pace of it." Bruning talked about one intense episode where each of the actors had about ten-fifteen changes, and she had to keep bringing them in for more fittings. "Finally they were like 'We just trust you, just put it in the dressing room and we're going to put it on.' And I said, 'Well that's great, but I need to know if it fits.' And Regina used to say to me all the time, 'We know everything you do is amazing, so just it's fine, do we need to do a fitting?' And I was like, 'Yeah, actually we do. That's why everything's amazing.'" Bruning said of the actors' reaction to her work, "I think that what they saw coming out of my shop and with my crew felt like magic." It's not hard to see why. Every episode of Black Monday features one-of-a-kind costumes that bring the characters wearing them to life, and the era of the 80's along with them.
